Akibae

History

Akibae (秋映) was raised by Takeo Otagiri (小田切健男), an apple grower at Nakano in Nagano Prefecture^1,2. His family had long farmed there, growing mushrooms and raising silkworms, before turning from mushrooms to apples². In 1981 Otagiri first crossed Senshu with Tsugaru². The young trees resisted disease but were tender to frost, and in some years bore no fruit at all². After about ten more years’ work it was registered on 10 March 1993, as number 3411, on an application made in October 1990^1,2. Because it was raised at the foot of Mount Kōsha, the family first applied under the name Kōshū (高秋), but that name was already registered for another product; Otagiri named it Akibae, as an apple that shines in autumn².

It was first sent to market in 1994². Beside Senshu, then popular, its dark colour counted against it in Tokyo, but it was well received in Kyushu, and its name spread from there; Otagiri also held tastings across the Kanto region². When his widow, Tomoe, was interviewed in 2006, he had died three years before, and she and their son were still growing it².

In the 1990s, when Nagano’s fruit experiment station was testing where its Shinano Sweet would colour well, Akibae was on trial at the same time, and the results helped to separate the districts in which each would be planted³. In 2018 Akibae covered 456.8 hectares, 1.3 per cent of Japan’s apple orchards, tenth among varieties⁴; Nagano grew it on 450 hectares in 2024, producing 7,292 tonnes⁵.

The fruit

The registration describes a round fruit of about 300 grams, its yellow-green ground heavily covered in deep red without clear stripes, and marked with large russet-like dots¹. The flesh is yellowish white, firm and juicy, with little or no watercore; it has moderate sweetness, at about 14 °Brix, moderate acidity and a marked aroma¹. JA Nagano gives 14–15 per cent sugar and 0.4–0.5 per cent acid and calls the fruit extremely juicy². Fully ripe fruit turns a dark, almost black red, especially in cold districts such as Nakano and at altitude; picked at the same ripeness in warmer districts it is a plainer red². It keeps fairly well in ordinary storage¹. Tomoe Otagiri recommended it for apple pie².

Growing

The tree has short internodes and sets many flower buds in the leaf axils¹. It drops little fruit before harvest and suffers few physiological disorders and little core mould¹. Because it colours well, it has been encouraged in warm districts, where colour is generally poorer², and Nagano plans to expand it mainly at low altitudes, since it needs less work to colour⁵. The fruit is naturally prone to russet, which Otagiri reduced by thinning each flower cluster early to its central flower².

Where the sources disagree

• Season. The 1993 registration calls it an early variety, ripening in early September at Nakano, a little after Tsugaru¹. Nagano Prefecture now gives harvest from around early October⁶, and its plan centres shipping on early October⁵. Tomoe Otagiri recalled that, as it colours earlier than other varieties, it was at first picked as soon as it coloured, until they found that about 20 more days on the tree improved both its colour and its flavour².
• Russet. The registration records large russet-like dots but little or no russet in the stalk cavity¹; JA Nagano describes the variety as naturally heavily russeted².